It might be common, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to wail against it - especially since I was not familiar with this particular case. As it turns out, several of Adobe products' download pages have opt-out checkboxes to also install Google Chrome. This was spyware-like behaviour when Apple did it with Safari and the iPhone Configuration Utility, and it is still spyware-like behaviour when Adobe and Google do it with Chrome.

You go to chrome download page, and download Chrome. It comes with nothing. Same goes for Picasa. You use the "I've this" (yeah, i've seen a lot of things too) to come up with this nonsense: "Google are simply not interested in competing based on promoting an open and fair Internet."

As opposed to whom??

Which major tech company is more interested in an open and fair Internet? Apple? Microsoft? Yahoo? Please.

I've never seen the bundle you mention. Come to think of it, Google is a major rival to Skype, especially with their latest hangout feature on + (free 10-way video teleconferening). It was certainly not Google who bundled Skype with Chrome.

Clue: they provide vastly different services (the only overlap is Chrome, which is based on Chromium, that Google provides as open source software). Google provides the only viable non-encumbered video codec. Or where is Mozilla's mapping software? Telephony? Email service. Picasa? Video sharing site? Social network? I could mention countless others. Now some of these are ad supported (and some completely ad free, supported by ad revenue indirectly). How do you propose Google provided all this essentially free services? By taking donations? Lol. A small project like Mozilla can survive on a different model than Google's, but come one, how can you compare the two?

[q] "Google are simply not interested in competing based on promoting an open and fair Internet."

As opposed to whom??

Which major tech company is more interested in an open and fair Internet? Apple? Microsoft? Yahoo? Please.
/q]
Have you not heard of Mozilla? They have a pretty big market share, the biggest in some countries.

And what's Mozilla? Well that's the *only* company that I know of which is promoting an open and fair internet. In fact, that actually makes it mission to fight for the user - regardless of the recent anti-Mozilla FUD - and is a not-for-profit company (that's right, they've zero other interest than making it better for everyone)

Which major tech company is more interested in an open and fair Internet? Apple? Microsoft? Yahoo? Please.

Canard. The reason this issue is controversial is that Google likes to wrap itself in the false premise that it favors an open and fair Internet. Google only cares about openness to the extent that the perception helps Google in pushing for tighter control over all advertising revenue streams. Microsoft, Apple, and Yahoo never claimed to be proponents of an open and fair Internet. So, thanks for the strawman argument.